What's Holding You Back from Adaptive Leadership Success?

my younger employees they really expect like you know to really be successful financially even though they don't necessarily put in the work welcome to the let's talk business podcast a project of the PEX group gain valuable actionable ideas from the world's top Business Leaders to help you take the next step in your business journey and now here is your host Manny Hoffman comic D found the PEX headquarters in Brooklyn New York this is the podcast for No Nonsense advice to help you learn grow and Lead today I'm so excited to welcome our guest beny alabi beny's Incredible Journey is nothing short of inspiring from moving from the UK to the US and acquiring a friend's coaching business Beni turned a madest opportunity into a thriving Enterprise all without any prior business experience in this episode beny shares the mindset shift and strategies that fueled his success offering invaluable lessons for leaders and people focused Industries we'll explore how to scale up business sustainability by proving Concepts and ensuring Financial stability the art of balancing personal on business branding to maximizing impact we also going to speak about actionable advice on reducing employer turnover enhancing operational efficiency and positioning Services as a must haves and we'll also talk about how to achieve work life balance through clear communication and adaptability whether you're entrepreneur starting out on a seasonal business leader looking to refine your approach this episode episode is packed with practical takeaways to help you innovate grow and Thrive without further Ado here is my interview with [Music] Beni beny thank you so much for joining me on the let's business podcast thank you so much for having me Manny thank you so I've been following your journey I've been seeing you at shows I've been following you at some of the content that you're putting out on LinkedIn and other social platforms and you actually dabble in a very interesting space I think um a couple of years ago we actually had the one of the sea level Executives from Rosetta Stone on the show and was a great episode and we spoke about uh like language barriers and what that does for a person in the professional in a professional manner as far as how they you know as they do business and other other areas of life but this is a little interesting who you targeting what you teaching them and so on and so forth so for our listeners before we get into the business side of things tell us a little bit about who you are okay um so my name is benel Kuby um originally from the UK um eventually ended up coming to to uh yiva tal College over here in the US and then after that you know did a couple of years in Israel eventually met my wife from California which and uh in a surprising turn of events uh I ended up totally uing my life in the UK moving to the US and while in the while in you know know significant to this podcast or to the business while in the while living in Israel a friend of mine who had come from a community that spoke that spoke English as a second language started this company and um you know I I I went in with him like right from the start just spent a couple of hours and believe it or not I started off by coaching people in English and then uh eventually after it was between 8 to 10 months you know we realized that maybe it wouldn't you know he wasn't fully passionate pass into it so uh I was super young never had a penny to my name and uh and he mentioned an insane amount in like an insane Price He said listen beny if you want to buy me out like I'd be open to that at the time I was I didn't know the first thing about business and and I pride myself on still saying that still don't know the first thing about business but uh but just as as we go as we go we're all we're we're all learning on you know day to-day and it was between a loan and investors and I actually reached out I actually it's funny I see a couple of podcasts ago you had Yankee marit from SBA loan group on the podcast um so I reached that to him I'd seen his face very nice guy such a nice guy they have their marketing game down pet or so at least at least I'm aove of that um so I give them a call um and I really didn't know the first or last thing I remember them asking for pnls and like I I knew nothing about business literally nothing at all um which is funny because a couple months earlier by a freak of nature I'd gone and applied to a business school I got accepted but uh for whatever reason you know this fell into my lap and I ended up pursuing this deferring school so I called him up asked him for a loan and then surpris surprising turn of events uh him and his partner Mandy wankin uh they put their faith behind me and they went ahead and invested we bought the company out and thank God we have been on a trajectory of growth you know not thank God yeah that's the quick story behind it yeah so so tell us more about uh what you do actually you know and and I want to go I want to go into some more details about it 100% so I start started off like literally doing everything from the coaching to operations and to researching softwares that would work for us to sales I was literally like doing everything I I remember like not even knowing the terms I I literally I didn't know how to like make a sale or anything um I had a little experience like from when I was a kid is it very funny when I was a kid I started off I think it was my first my first business when I was 14 years old I remember you know around the synagogues within the Manchester UK area they used to so people for ad you know advertising people hang up these little you know posters and uh I went ahead and remember that one person came to me and said hey beny for 25 pounds a week a week which is roughly what 33 $35 and he's said for £ 25s a week would you go around these 52 synagogues and hang up these posters and I was like okay let's try it and then it really ballooned I I was always just like my main focus was like real customer service and making sure that if I did I did it properly so it was another guy that did it and he would take like the eight posters hang them up on one pin and expect you know the whoever the organizer was of that synagogue to go and then hang them nicely but I was always careful not to cover any other notices and I really I remember just like really taking care of the the customers I had no idea what profit was so I I ran at a loss and had no idea I just spent the money as a 14-year-old and uh as you know life moves along you just it's just something I've seen so much how people you know really they spend they spend they spend and they think money's coming in and let say hey we did $10,000 in sales today and then they'll go back and because there's no uh you know because there's no real structure and accountability for specific amounts you know what's going out and what's coming in we currently offer so for people that speak English as a second language sometimes they can it can really get in the way um whether they live in America or England or Australia or an english- speaking uh country or if they want to globalize further so let's say for example we have people working in high-tech or we have people working even you know sometimes these outsourced workers you know working from the Dominican Republic or the Philippines they want to work for American companies which is obviously much more lucrative for them uh they find that this is definitely the you know the first step in in in in opening themselves up to more opportunities that's what we do uh recently we've also just expanded a little more um we have a couple of other languages we just started Spanish um which thank God is going is is going well um a lot of people who have Spanish speaking employees find it very hard to communicate with them and we're trying to break that barrier too we've joined up with uh We've collaborated with multiple colleges to help even even students who speak English as a first language when it comes to essay writing and you know apaa style or whatever it is so really it's it's it's an on an academic level but our bottom line is really results right so it's it's funny you said that you brought on someone else um there is a statistic out there let's say for example that you know we all software you know you can sign up to do a lingo or whatever there's a statistic out there that only 3% of people actually finish online courses or whatever so we saw that break and we also we wanted cultural sensitivity as well towards specific communities so we really want to be able to service that so that's our core service English advancement 101 really coner and yeah thank God nice so so the end of like the way you you actually deliver the value in the services is with oneon-one um coaching correct we're we're slightly moving over to edtech so I'm not sure if you're familiar the edtech um the edtech is uh industry is is is billions of dollars it's it's billion dollar industry um so people generally if they they want to make it the most profitable they they don't want to have to have human involvement so they'll set up a software they'll set up whatever they'll set up so what we're kind of doing is we're going really old school and that's what really attracts our client base so even though it may not be as profitable because there's the passion there too we do the oneon-one the human involvement we're moving slightly towards a hybrid situation where people can also go online use our website whatever it is but that's that's our thing yeah let me ask you some a follow-up question so obviously you're leading a company and and there is planning involved there's sales involved there's marketing involved there's uh lot of you know different uh parts and obviously you learned on the job as you mentioned before humbly mentioned before still learning yeah still learning we never you know we never stop learning I always say the the business owner that stops learning uh something is something is off something is off especially with today's day and age with so many advancement on all sides of you know from from HR to to how things are being played out how people's uh um attention span and so many different things I guess my question to you is um as a leader how much of this point like what's what's your how does the day in your life look like as a leader so I'm not going to I'm not going to lie um I still struggle balancing my day you know first of all HR for example I I I I never even just when I started when at working for the people I bought the business out from I was that kind of guy who just like grinded for I think it was $22 an hour originally it started even lower like $20 an hour I was in a tiny apartment in Israel four computer screens set up on my dining room table and I didn't I like I never expected anything from them besides a paycheck but I really really grinded um so it was all new to me like the whole HR we saw at the beginning we had a very fast you know I'm not not embarrassed to say it just happens if you don't know what HR is we had a very fast quick turn over you know people came they weren't satisfied they moved on I think it was a year and a half ago we h a you know a director of operations I finally started you know delegating some tasks of the SE suite and it was her who really pointed out to me that you know HR is important we got to keep them happy we started sending little gifts and then uh recently now we have Jacob Freelander I don't know if you know him but he's he's our director of operations and he fights tooth and nail for our employees so it's funny he works for me but he fights for them and I'm slowly like learning like it used to be someone used to ask me for like two weeks off in the middle of the year and remember two weeks off people have scheduled sometimes a year in advance people have scheduled lessons you look at our calendar it looks like all hell has broken loose um so it's it's it's it's really and I used to like why are you taking two weeks off like it's a business whatever that's the way it runs we have a contract and like I I used to just like I expect people to let's say for example I needed two minutes of work here two minutes of work there I expected people to do stuff without being paid and and I'm okay saying this I because I expected everyone to have the same work iic as as what I had grown up with AKA like British old school work work work um but now I'm really learning on that so HR so whether it's HR uh tech for example I'm super old school I like just recently again the Jacob freelancer director of oper like he's like let's automate this and let's automate that and we we actually we've now instituted Innovation hour where for 1 hour a week we sit down together and say okay let's run through our business model once again what can we automate what can we automate what other softwares can we get to you know take besides we're taking away from you know having to pay people to do that you know humans to do that besides for saving from that it also saves from human error right and gives a lot of clarity on the Cent end so so yeah so it's between HR learning new softwares I'm also heavily involved in sales really heavily involved in sales uh we're just expanding you know we're starting to build out the sales team but I'm not far along enough that Journey that I have a great structure to my day but uh you know definitely touch base on really on everything and then I I a few a few students I'd like to stay in the game in the trenches with the teacher so a few students I actually coach myself but that's that's what a regular day looks like for me yeah it's amazing that you're sharing it and I think I think um one of the reasons that I brought you on the show is I want to hear the story because you know obviously sometimes we have these uh we have CEOs of larger companies that have gone through years of experience experience and now they have a whole team and everything and sometimes it's very hard to relate to the young guy just passionate about a product and service and starting their business and really grinding it from you know without even looking at at at the clock so to speak like whatever hours they have and sometimes it's important but it's equally important at one point to figure out okay I've done enough of that this won't get me to the next stage now I have to start changing my mindset and there's a there's a course that I give which is called the leaders Forum um with like 10 business owners at a time and I mainly did it out of passion because these are questions that keep on coming coming to my desk and I said at one point what if I do like a day training and and bring in those leaders and speak to them and I I always start off the same way I I I asked the question like what is the biggest challenge of that you feel you face in business and the natural response of people is growing my business that's the biggest challenge growing my business my response to that is always that that it's actually very easy to grow a business think speak to every business owner that started off I would say I wouldn't say every but most of the business owners let's say they came from the industry they know the industry they had a passion to the product they were good at everything they did business needs and they started the business and all of a sudden they went to the friends family community and they the first few months was great like you know I couldn't believe it will'll have this amount of clients in this short period of time and and they they're so excited then you speak to the same business owner six months in 12 months in and starts wobbling that that feeling why because growing the company is not is not hard managing the growth is the hard part now that I have to start scaling I have to start bringing in my system I have to start creating systems processes and most companies that fail fail at that stage they don't fail about growing the business they fail about managing the growth of their business I cannot agree I cannot agree more just when it com of processes systems dealing with the growth I like that the growth isn't the challenge the dealing with the growth is the challenge I like that yeah hey listeners are you struggling to create beautiful looking proposals is it a hassle every time you need to prepare a quote or proposal for your clients is collecting signatures still a manual process well it's time to upgrade to pandadoc at PEX we use pandadoc for all our proposals employee documentation and so much more it saves us time keeps everything organized and our documents look incredibly professional with customizable templates real-time collaboration and E signatures padoc turns creating documents into quick and easy steps plus it integrates with so many other tools streamlining your workflow and boosting productivity try pandadoc today by visiting px. c/ pandadoc and start your free trial trust me it's going to be a GameChanger for your business that's pte x.p da do o I so I commend you for for you mentioned that at one point figuring out I need to bring in the directive operations I need to bring an HR because at at at that scalability when you hit that Mark that's exactly when you you have to start changing your your thinking process and saying you know what I'm have to go away from that grinding grinding grinding to What will what will move the needle forward in my business for scalability oh I need a person there I need a person here or I need persistance and processes so that's why exact I wanted to hear from you and I appreciate that that you know that um humility of sharing that you know you weren't there in the beginning because most people weren't there in the beginning but then you started learning it and sometimes you hire the first person and they're not working out and then we have to uh change that person but eventually you start creating a system around the services and products that you offer sorry can I just mention the flip side like I remember so I remember like uh it all got real like I think we hired our 15th employee and um and I I was still like just really like handling them all myself and like a ton of slack messages every day it was crazy um and I called a spoke to a friend of mine who was still taking out business loans you know to grow his business um but he wasn't putting he he delegated early so there really is that balance of knowing like what you're saying is amazing right that obviously one has to know that as they scale in ratio they have to you know match up the you know being open to you know delegating correctly and really scaling and that's that's a difficult part of growing a business it's not just getting the clients or whatever um however there are those who hire premat who hire prematurely delegate prematurely and and they go into the black hole of debt before you know doing that initial year or two of hustle or whatever it is but it's definitely it's a talent it's the talent exactly and I I appreciate you mentioning this yeah doing those things too early which means you didn't prove the concept or you you don't have the financial means or whatever it is will also put you know will also be have a a a negative effect in your business obviously you're in a people's business which means is it's all human interaction so there's two sides to it it's your own team and then there's obviously your team conveying the same attitude and the same culture to the people that they're working with uh what could you share about your systems and processes or even the attitude towards your team how do you making sure that every Mentor every coach whatever you call it speaks to the client the same way beny would have spoken to that client okay that's an awesome question um so first of all in the in the I'm just going to call it the olden days but in in the beginning let's say for example today this morning um a client I'm just going to you know put them up against each other a client called and said you know I I got on this I got on this coaching session with a teacher and that this teacher does not live in the United States it was 11: p.m. you know where he was and he was like he you know the the client complained that he was super tired and he was wasn't he wasn't you know performing the best and everything uh in the olden days I would have just gone and I would have gone all out on the on on the on the coach I would have called him up and said what's going on we have to you know you have to be on top of your game you know if you need to lessen your errors that's your call you have to be on top of your game and today I I like I I I saw that like I that's what I used to do I reached out to to to to the teacher and I said please can you just give me an overall uh you know synopsis you know succinct synopsis of what went on during that lesson and he he portrayed it all to me and I saw that that was the the obvious Gap it just wasn't the right match you know the student with the coach um so I think definitely giving the benefit of the doubt and conveying to your team that you are 100% loyal to them right rather than the client now obviously client very American saying I don't know how you know I don't know how faithful this is but they say client is God right now it's a very American saying um I I I I I wouldn't want to stay with that the whole time but usually you know that's the way it works you know client says you know you know vendor does but uh I I really feel like conveying to your team that no no no no I'm first going to check with you and make sure that indeed there is a claim I think putting the loyalty and Trust within them really empowers them number two is and this is something we set up just starting two months ago every single sale that is made in the company companywide any sale that comes in every single employee gets something and this and this is something that I would have never dreamt of doing and and and and it just it's it's you know especially with the the climate nowadays it's we some people say you know everybody's looking for jobs it's funny I was just looking at someone someone's Social Media last night he was saying everybody's looking for jobs but on the other hand I still feel that since Co we haven't gotten out of that employees world where everybody knows you know everybody's trying to you know make personal brands or become influencers or become you know that there are so many other ways to make money besides going to a nto5 job that I still feel it's an employees world and you just you you've got to hustle in that way and and although I'm not used to it really HR every two weeks as well with a remote team it's really hard every two weeks we have just a meeting for a half hour additionally every month they can just so that I speak to them outside of work get to know them who are who are they so they can all Book 15 minute sessions with me to speak to me and it's just been so productive um it just automatically goes into my calendar and that's 15 minutes they can speak about whatever they'd like um I think really humanizing it um bonus you know if you give them some sort of profit share equity and I know it's really hard for a small business owner to to do because he's like oh I'm only making $100 on this deal give them 50 cents that's it just 50 cents they have to feel that they are adding to the overall value of the company and that the company knows and the company shows appreciation through profitability for each one of them I hope that answers your question yeah beautiful um I want to speak about another topic is obviously um you know in the world of business we know there's there's needs and there is wants uh you know when it comes to buying in product in particular uh and you always want to be in the the need versus the need business you'll be be providing a need versus a want because when the econom is tough or any any type of things they have to make a decision where to allocate the money how would you say you're framing your service for your potential client great question luxury a necessity I would definitely say necessity uh meaning of course we get those people who reach out to us that just want it you know let's say for example we started recently we started a Yiddish teaching track that we teach Yiddish so obviously our first few clients were peace people who out of necessity you know a dentist from Ek who needs to speak Yiddish to his you know kic clients or um a lawyer in New York City where has two cidic paralal and during a deposition wants to be able to just you know shed across the table it's these are actual clients um but uh but uh but then we get these you know we got one older woman recently who just does a linguist she wants to explore the yish language you know she comes from Jewish ancestry I'm not even sure if she herself is Jewish but uh but obviously we do have the luxury but we our our Target Niche when it comes to marketing is definitely the necessity Market because exactly as you said economy hits art people are allocating their money you know to Necessities not to luxuries and how do you how do you communicate that because um you know sometime if you see a product and service in general you could uh you know you walk by the store you see it if it's a service you know lands you know scaper or even a marketing agency you know when you need them at which point does does a person feel that oh I need to work on my language and therefore are this flu talk like like what is that process of of where do you find that where do you find those people in order to make sure that they understand they have their need 100% so to be honest um um we we've asked we ask every client you know how long have you been thinking about this on average I would say an an average client imagine you're doing you know you have to do business in Spanish or Portuguese or Mandarin whatever it was so if you would have to do that and you had a broken Mandarin you would think about that at least once a day you would think why don't I know that language if only I knew that language if only I was able to speak so obviously the clients that we reaching out to they're they're selling themselves in essence they're selling themselves what we have to do when we come to a marketing game our marketing approach is just mirror to them that we understand exactly their pay point and that's what we're coming to solve so it's very funny we some some of our marketing videos we spent thousands of dollars on and one of them we spent $90 on I went with an amateur video videographer to a park here in Nevada We videoed it and you know I edited it just a tiny drop and it's been our best performing video why because basically I I get out of a car and I say you know I've got 30 seconds to grab your attention as every elevator elevator sales pitch you know a lot of people in within the communities and the people we service are in sales and then I do a three 3 second hesitation where the video just goes click click click and 3 second hesitation and then I say do you want to be that guy you know let's say you're an insurance salesman or in marketing or whatever you're in you want to sell something you have to grab their attention and you've got a 3 second hesitation it just sets everything off from the beginning do you want to be that guy and that has been our best performing video cuz it mirrors the paino of the client exactly I think that's the bottom line so to answer your question I really feel that they selling themselves they realize theity on a daily basis they struggle people struggle when it comes to educating the client that it is a necessity that's more for like people who like do business in one country and have always thought about putting out content in in efforts you know to to to to eventually globalize but they're not sure that that already comes to education but that's not our that's not our court line tell Court line tell are people who do business in English already yeah speaking about that video because I saw that video um I want to ask you a follow-up question which is um and this is a a common question business owners ask me when it comes to branding marketing you know once upon a time people only you know building the company's brand and today we live in a world that you could also build your personal brand and sometimes they interconnect or sometimes they're separate my biggest struggle by the way this is my biggest struggle it's terrible that's what I'm asking that's what I'm asking so so obviously as you growing your company people see you at shows people see you as the as a spokesperson on videos and stuff like that how do you separate that a person thinking oh I'm going to get beny to be my my teacher so to speak I I struggle I'm not going to lie I struggle immensely with it really really really struggle immensely with it even you know whether it comes to exposure or things like you know so someone someone recently came to me I love your energy I want you to train my team in sales right which I'm I'm fine with doing but then I really knew that he could be client for fluent talk he was reaching out cuz he liked my energy then this could this also goes into the like the whole topic of like do you become friends with your clients or not because once you're friends with them on the one hand you can guilt them into buying from you but on the other hand it's not relation it's not a good relationship for the sale because if you need to put your foot down to you know to enforce policies uh I'm going to put it straight across to you straight straight back on you you know I mean you do this podcast people know many Hoffman you show up at shows you you give presentations and then people come let's how do you know that people are coming to you for your marketing skill rather than they've fallen in love with your personality good question I'll answer it because I think maybe there's other people on that listen to the show have the same question so it took a couple of years there was a very fogginess between let's say the personal brand and the business brand at one point actually and if you come to our office you'll see it on my walls right over top and then you'll see it on the literature of PEX that I separated my brand from the PEX brand which means is it came a point where I want to help everybody so everybody could be a customer come in we'll do ads to do stuff like that at one point my team became way more sophisticated and the type of projects they wanted to do and the type of project they were able to deliver tremendous value was a certain type of client a certain stage of a business and so on and so forth and at that point I said you know what okay so many have Lov to help people and and I could help any type of first in any any scenario why PEX cannot because the way they structure themselves and the team and everything else they can't so we actually went and developed SE separate mission statements separate core values and everything into to those two so if you come to my office you'll see I believe every person should be given the the opportunity to suceed in life that's my mission statement and therefore I'll sit with people for paid I'll sit with people for volunteer slots I'll sit with teenagers that are at risk and they're looking for somebody to give him a half an hour to figure out what the next step is however you come to PEX you'll deal with you know we work with um driven Brands looking to create their next so in that message is driven Brands looking to create their next now those are two separate now I could be the spokesperson of PEX as far as the leader and the CEO of PEX now comes to an event a person will say I want to meet with you and my second my question will be right away tell me more about it and if it's going to be a business question something related to what I could provide they'll meet with me the second they'll say even before the meeting or actually I meet with them so what do you suggest I should do on marketing what do you suggest I do in branding I'll say listen my team is more equipped to answer that question at the time and I'm GNA set you up with one of my team members because I want they should own the conversation I want they should prescribe what needs to happen and they should be there to deliver every step of the way so I'm still CEO if somebody will have a question or somebody have a a challenge later on whatever it is they could reach out to me but when they come into the funnel it's going to be very obvious why they're coming in so hence the the the podcast some people will say you're not selling enough PEX on the podcast you know if it's a Pex podcast the answer is you know business will come you know you know you know God has his ways and his plans but the goal of here is to deliver value and as soon as you deliver value people will come to you and then will navigate where they need to land as far as what their needs are but it's a a very important um reason because I need to give the space for my people in my brand to be to live Way Beyond me as a personal brand versus sometimes you could see an accountant where he or she is the face of the brand and people say I need to sit with that person end of the year I need to sit with that person to review my questions although at one point could be they have great people that could even be better answering that tax question than the the accountant was so it's a fine line however what I do say is if you don't have the capacity to do both or there's no need to to to to do both then you start off one way which you could be the personal brand because you could be very relatable to your target audience at one point you start you know channeling those people into understanding that the company is way bigger than myself that's great that's great stuff I I feel I feel like I should have interviewed you rather than you interviewing me huh no no it's a conversation it's a conversation so now we're going to get to the meat and the potatoes of the interview so you teach obviously um um you know the different languages that you teach and your team actually um and you speak to people that have that need as we mentioned before uh I want to try to give away some secrets to people that are listening to the show I want to understand from you again English wasn't my first language as well but I learned with time and I and I speak the way I speak now like I've I've had guests ask me like do you want to like the wayer this is what this is who I am this is what I speak how much of the teaching that you teach is the just the English language and how much is it of how to use what in terms of conversations because you live in a world and I we had guest on the show where you're in a sales meeting yeah you could use professionally the English language yet you're not going to close the sale you're not going to have good read in the room you're not going to be able to move the conversation forward and then there's techniques and ways of how to get the person to speak how to get the people people to open up so which of the two is it is it a mixture of both I I think we're really focused more on the language now it happens to be that our our coaches aren't just like you know aren't just you know people who happen speak English they're not just academics there are you know we have a couple of like highly accomplished you know phds and and and and and and professors um and and the quite a few of them have dabbled in different areas so they're really able to coach and further coaching so let's say for example um you know if someone says um let's say I have a student who says beny how would you okay very nice you've taught me the English you know for us you let's say sometimes businessmen want to run over their typical pitch you know they meet someone on a plane there's potential for a touch a touch base over there how would I do that so we'll run through the grammar we'll run through the grammar rules as well to help them for the future and then he would say beny what's the approach you would take of of course I i' try as much as possible we our bottom line and that's our mission statement we want to value value value value um but to be honest I think it's more you know it's it's really it's really to to I wouldn't say we we dabble in other areas much um unless it comes to unless it comes to you know college students who are you know heading for their exams or heading for their essays then obviously we really break it down for them how you want to present an idea to perform best in your class and all of that stuff but for regular businessmen we don't dabble too much in the presentation side you know rather strictly on the gramar and vocabulary you know as to the English language yeah so so for our listeners just to give them away a tip or two um what would you say from your experience what you've seen with others um where where are the places where people can make immediate change in order to come better that's a tough one it's a really tough one it's funny cuz on our sales calls we always tell people hey we don't do magic and this is going to take you a long time we'd like to scare them away first and then if they're not scared we realize they're a real Prospect but from your experience you've seen people coming in and where where's the the most challenging places where they're facing right do you mean I I could give like a grammar tip that people really struggle with if if if you want that it's interesting um so most languages in the world let's say for example an action word right let's say for example I walk I talk I drive I work most languages don't have a separate form of verb of the action for Progressive in general now I'm throwing around F these terms by the way during our lessons we try to not use terms at all because we're results driven we don't want to turn you into a professor but basically if I'm in the middle of driving that's when we use driving with the ing in English right if I'm not in the middle of driving it's something I still do presently but it's generally I don't use that ink I drive to work every day and so I drive to work every day is generally if you're in the middle it's I'm driving right right or I'm walking I'm talking and two things first of all over 50% of our sentences every day are action words so someone who struggles with this even just this tip being able to integrate it and there are exercises to integrate it but even just integrating this you've already helped over 50% of your sentences be more correct okay that's one mind-blowing statistic and another thing is that over 50% of the languages in the world actually do not have two different forms okay um you know they'll just have the they'll they'll have drive but they'll have I drive generally and then I drive now or or you know I drive now they'll add another word for now just like in yish right I don't for for those that don't speak yish you say yet you add that on to the action and that's why we just fuse it all into one because they're like oh I'm saying the action word there's only one action word because they're not used to but really in English unlike many other languages There's an actual just you add the ink only when you're in the middle but if it's in general just use that root of the word that's like around tip I think that's our yeah very cool so so let me ask you something which it's more related to writing but I think this is also a very common um challenge that people are having when to use the comma versus the period in starting a new sentence that's a a challenge but I think generally we put a comma I can go into the academic part of it if you want me to delineate it go for it okay basically a sentence what's a sentence the classification of a sentence in English grammar is that there is an action or description going on in the sentence right so let's say for example I pick up my phone and say this phone is blue that's a description or an action you know I call my dad every week whatever it is there's one so there's one person one action you know once someone doing the person doing the action a comma is generally used when it's called it's you know it's a longer sentence with two people and two actions or you know one action and and that there are two parts of the sentence that can either be split into two sentences but sometimes it sounds more eloquent to push it into one sentence so let's say for example I woke up this morning and I ate breakfast so really that would classify as two sentences because there are two actions two people and two actions right two people doing the actions and two actions that would classify as two separate sentences compound sentences is called or complex sentences depending where you come from instead of that we can just use a comma after the first language and following the comma you would use a conjunction a you know a joining word whether it's and but so except besides a a bunch of different ones there but that's generally when we would use a comma if it's you know two things that could classify as two two two different senses but they do have to do with each other and they have they're they're running a sequence we would use a comma a period really ends event one and begins event two I hope that's clear and I really don't want to get geeky here but I I really hope that I really hope that helps yeah do you suggest like a part of your like when you speak when you work with your um students uh do you suggest tools like family or stuff like that to to be companions or you get used to that and and and you rather want the person to to learn it from from the get-go it's a great question and this opens up to the whole question of guys call me up and say my grandfather became a millionaire and he never knew you know a word of English and I tell him you are 100% right two things first of all he was one out of 100 people okay the other 99 you know struggle number two is even if the other 99 don't struggle they would have gotten there quicker you know or they would have felt more confident um you know had they had they been equipped with the skills um as for grammarly I think it depends what kind of person you are if you're a person if you're the kind of person who will use the grammarly in conjunction with the lessons then you'll see how grammarly will correct you and then you'll say oh it's because of that and the more you're triggered the more you can integrate always we want to trigger you as much as possible and then integrate you all so now many after this phone call let's say you go and meet someone else and he makes that ing mistake you'll be triggered then you can start integrating that's just the way it works um if you hear someone else all the more so we we're always quicker to correct other people and you know grab other people's mistakes but I think using grammar that but if you lose grammarly just loose headed Le and not thinking into it then sometimes it can disable and just sometimes grammarly doesn't get the context um but uh but but but I think overall listen use the tools use AI I'm not you know if someone calls me and says listen I struggle with my speaking with my reading right I'm not good but I use AI I use this I use that 2024 baby use use what you need you know I mean use what you need we're here to deliver value if you feel that you can get that you know Elsewhere for cheaper go for it 100% very cool I'll ask you a final question which is um um now that you're building the business the business is growing um and and you have different people how do you deal with work life balance so used to be terrible at this and I still think I'm not the best at this um it's funny because uh again for your listeners that are not Jewish the way it works in the Jewish world is that we have a match maker okay like before one gets when one is ready to go into the you know to the period of like looking for a match that we have a Matchmaker and you know just to sift out you know irrelevant matches then we have something called a resume right or a CV just like one has a work CV a match CV and it's funny because in Britain it's not just it's not just Jewish culture you know it's Indian culture and it's very British old British culture they actually have matchmakers right the royal family use as a Matchmaker so on my resume I put it in there I remember putting it in there and this was even before I'd gotten involved in business at all but I I I put it in there already that I'm going to need someone who will understand that when I start the business I'm going to be like 100% in so that's just a a funny a funny anecdote um I have not worked it out yet just being 100% honest generally I try not to schedule anything set in stone after 5:00 P p.m. uh but uh rather you know it on a day you know I'll text my wife hey can I take a meeting after you know you know after 5 then I'll do it every now and again and also I'm just going to be 100% honest if sales have been down that day I'll sit in the office for a couple extra hours it's funny cuz I really feel that work life balance is important however I feel that the this culture it's like becoming a whole culture of like life is you know just work three hours a day and people expect results from like nothing I'm going to throw this over to you cuz you know you you're older than me and I'm sure you've had more experience with this but uh you know I mean we I'm sure you remember the days when people just used so work work work until until things exploded and I feel that nowadays teenagers just aren't aware I I can see from our younger employees as well even though I'm pretty young myself I was brought up old school except for my younger employees they really expect like you know to really be successful financially even though they don't necessarily put in the work because yeah yeah it's it's so true but uh like my my um definition of work life balance is giving it 100% when they when it when it's needed so which means is sometimes your business needs 100% you're running a new business you're starting a new business or you have a very you know Season whatever it is and and sometimes your family needs you 100% And the goal is whenever your family needs you 100% they know you're there for for them 100% And your business associates know I have to take a break because I'm now dealing with the family hopefully for good things but but you have to be with a family and same is with the business when you have to put in a lot of hours in the business the challenge is not letting the neglecting your family the challenge is people forget to let the their family know that I'm going through a a struggle or I'm going through a hard you know busy season and be at my side all of a sudden you find out that your spouse is bringing you lunch that day in the office because they they were aware that you're going through some busy days or you're subbing for a coworker that's out of the office and I think that's that's what's missing and and I feel that's what's called balance balance is not 50/50 it's like marriage you always say how much do like I was 100% myself now I have a spouse how much do I need to give her you need to give her 100% or she needs to give you 100% it's not 50/50 so the same is same is with work life balance and I think that's what's missing that if you look back old school people they were home five o'clock but if this person is 10 they have to cover the bank or they know that they left clients hanging and so on and so forth they're not present so what's the purpose that's not called work life balance so I think I think um business owners need to have that balance in terms of understanding but they need to bring in the other side that they know what's happening and communication and it comes down business is all about communication personal development is also all about communication as well if I can tap this just for one second just as just just as a you know encouragement for people from from you know let's say for example a lot of your viewership are from the community and where we are of the of you know we're very into family life building family like right away even being young just to realize that we have it we have it double or triple you know let's just go tenfold you know as as as difficult as tough because what's happening is is that we start building businesses when the expenses are already there so it's so much tougher than let's say your your Elon Musk who's building a business you know when he's got like at the beginning I'm short from now he's got a whole brood but I'm saying at the beginning you know or Jeff beus or you know you can go through them and uh it's really it's it's it's it's amazing what people are pulling off but just to realize that it's it's yeah it's tough listen let's end on that as well is um if there's people listening and they're younger they're thinking of going into business or they're struggling and they're in business what what word of words of encouragement do you have for them I I really think Business and Entrepreneurship is not for everyone and I know this doesn't sound cool and isn't going to be made into a cool Instagram reel and splashed across there because people like hearing that every one can make a million dollarss on day one but I really think that people have to think to themselves you know can my family handle it let's say if you're married can my spouse handle it can my kids handle it and can I handle it some people cannot handle it um now a lot of people are forced into it because they live in places with like inflation like just just not regular expenses so they're forced into it but I really don't think it's for I really think you should think to this maybe it's worth you know becoming an accountant doing n till 5 instead of becoming an entrepreneur and trying to you know and trying to to to rock it because it's really not that easy the going is tough I love it I I think it's it's I think it's very important and we'll end with that like where could people find out more about your business and and if they want to see more of your content sure so um the business is my fluent talk.com we've also got all the handles you know whether it's Instagram YouTube or Tik Tok um and then we also have also on LinkedIn and then for personal um you can find me on LinkedIn gen I try to be as active as possible but I definitely look through the DMS pretty pretty often or service mylu talk.com is our is our main email and anybody could reach out and I really appreciate it Benny sure for the links resources mentioned this episode check out the show notes at www.p.com podcast we're not finished let's close with a four rapid fire questions are you ready okay go number one a book to change your life the Bible sorry I don't read business bucks good number two a piece of advice you got that you'll never forget don't hustle to make sales hustle to make processes that will make you sales beautiful number three anything you wish you could go back and do differently being more open to establishing and instituting real processes from the beginning instead of when you're drowning and you have to do them then and last and final question what's still on your bucket list to achieve being content I would say you know if you walk out after a good day a productive day just being content instead of right away running for the next thing I think beny thank you so much for joining us I know your time is valuable that is why in the name of our listeners will forever be grateful for sharing some of your time with us today it's been a blast thank you so much many my pleasure and that's my conversation with Beni alabi I take away from this one number one beny emphasizes the importance of proving business Concepts and ensuring Financial stability before expanding his story serves as a reminder that strategic planning and cautious financial management are crucial particularly in people oriented businesses to achieve sustainable growth number two the discussion highlights the challenges of managing dual identities as a business owner and public figure beny shares strategies for maintaining clear boundaries between personal Charisma and professional expertise illustrating how personal mission statements for personal and business Brands can enhance both interactions number three beny success story illustrates the value of building and maintaining a strong Professional Network engaging with peers and mentors provides diverse perspectives and opportunities which can be a pivotal for personal growth and business success number four beny emphasizes that the consumer Centric approach not only builds loyalty but also drives Innovation by encouraging feedback in Iration and number five transitioning from a teacher to a successful entrepreneur beny highlights how constantly acquiring new skills and adopting to changing business Landscapes can drive growth and Innovation and that's a wrap for today's episode of the let's look business podcast I hope you enjoy the Practical non-nonsense advice that our guest shared if you found value on listening I would be so grateful if you could share the episode with your friends and if you could give the show a five star rating on Apple podcast or whatever platform you listen subscribe to the show and get notified every time we publish a new episode The let's talk business podcast is a Pex group original ction until next time make it a great day [Music]